nice pictures, but what is the news or political content of these pictures and this event?

try flickr.com.

it is news

Oct 30, 2005 01:58AM EDT

madhatter

what is news? just because it isn't news news, doesn't mean people don't have the right to know. anyone can post anything. period. spam, sure. this, no. it's just another component of an active community.

news- yes the content is more about a celebration than a protest, but some would say you ought to have two streams of action: changing the world around you and creating alternate realities you find livable. i find the world of criminalizing cyclists and the city providing extremely inadequate infrastructure for my cycling absurd. i find a massive international dependence on oil abhorrent. so i've opted to ride my bike.

the surrealists said (apologies for butchering this) that they were trying to create a world that could not exist under capitalism.

and to go along with that: "Thus, far from contradicting, diluting, or diverting our revolutionary attitude toward life, surrealism strengthens it. It nourishes an impatient strength within us, endlessly reinforcing the massive army of refusals." Suzanne Cesaire

In this new post modern era of fetishizing powerlessness riding bikes has replaced real militant struggle.

Sad but true.

can you please detail exactly what kind of struggle we ought to be engaging in? bike kill is not attempting to be a protest. bike enthusiasm and bike activism are not the same thing and do not neccessarily have the same aims. alternative culture and ways of living are apolitical only insofar as they would like to be, they are political insofar as it is impossible to claim neutrality in the context we live in.

anyone who uses their apolitical social activities as an excuse for political work is probably just confused. but i wouldn't discount bike activism as "fake activism" because that would be silly and divisive. and if you think that sunday cyclists riding around recreationally are trying to smash the state, then you're confused. i think we ought to be more concerned with self-congratulatory buying patterns which give people the illusion of participating in activism through capitalism. that's way more problematic.

for now, kudos to black label for such an amazing piece of spectacle, and thanks to mike topper for posting pics.

yeah

Oct 30, 2005 12:25PM EST

true but

The post that was a reply to was asking why this was on indymedia and not some website for bicycle hobbiests or whatever since it isn't really activism or news. There could be some exploitative businessman there who's hobby is to dress down and tinker with bikes when he's not trying to find new ways to exploit 3rd world workers. Just cause bikes are your hobby doesn't mean you have any of the same class interests. So I just don't see why it's on indymedia.

Broken Spokes

Oct 30, 2005 01:48PM EST

ducati

Great photos, but probably more useful on the CM website, or in a layout for 'Bike' magazine or the Village Voice. Subindexed under the topic "NYC's Alternative Bike Courier Culture" What's next? anarchist river kayak races on the Hudson?

Too bad there isn't more serious NYC-IMC coverage on efforts to organize NYC's bike couriers into a union.

what is politics?

Oct 30, 2005 02:03PM EST

Tristin Tzara

Living is what matters...

Awesome

Oct 30, 2005 02:48PM EST

Chuck0

Looks like some folks had a good time and weren't sitting at home watching TV. This is news pure and simple, even if some of the whining Indymedia trolls think otherwise. These stories and pictures tell an exciting story about people getting together in their community and have fun with bikes.

Oh no, the real news/not news argument. I feel like this happens every time something that is not explicitly political in the self-aware activist fashion is posted on indymedia. I worry that this kind of editing is exactly what makes much of Indymedia predictable propaganda. If something interesting and different is happening, let's hear about it! Then we can all have a look and consider what is going on. Bike Kill is a problematic example, but what isn't?

I agree

Oct 30, 2005 04:23PM EST

upChuck

"If something interesting and different is happening, let's hear about it!"

Anyway, what about a NYC bike courier union? Is the IWW organizing it?

so

Oct 30, 2005 06:30PM EST

yeah whateva

So would you still agree if it wasn't some anarchist-chic activity like riding on bicycles.

What if someguy wanted to post about his RC Boat club or someone else posting about their basketweaving event? I mean come on have we been so thrashed by the ruling class that we've been reduced to celebrating anything that isn't blatantly consumerist? "Well they aren't shopping so I guess that's like progressive n' stuff right?"

Critical Mass meets Mad Max, road warrior

Oct 31, 2005 12:50AM EST

Love it

Could this be the start of a militant CM faction, ready to defend cyclists rights from the NYPD attacks? :-)

It does look like fun.

totally interesting and different

Oct 31, 2005 01:16PM EST

chic

"So would you still agree if it wasn't some anarchist-chic activity like riding on bicycles."

Agree? This is sarcasm: "Bike punks on indymedia is totally interesting and different."

This is what *I* agree with:

"In this new post modern era of fetishizing powerlessness riding bikes has replaced real militant struggle."

Criticism or trolling?

Oct 31, 2005 01:38PM EST

rsvp

"can you please detail exactly what kind of struggle we ought to be engaging in?"

Well...?

Oh, please

Oct 31, 2005 02:15PM EST

lev

It isn't hard to distinguish the sectarian political perspective from which the criticisms of these pictures are coming from. To wit:

"Just cause bikes are your hobby doesn't mean you have any of the same class interests."

"What if someguy wanted to post about his RC Boat club or someone else posting about their basketweaving event? I mean come on have we been so thrashed by the ruling class that we've been reduced to celebrating anything that isn't blatantly consumerist? "Well they aren't shopping so I guess that's like progressive n' stuff right?""

You know, it's deadly dull-serious comments like these that make me glad that, even though Indymedia isn't an anarchist project, it sure as hell isn't a project of the various multi-letter sectarian ML groups that grouch across this city and turn every act of resistance into a snooze-fest. Have you ever notice that these people are usually the only ones to have a very clear idea of what "belongs" and "doesn't belong" on Indymedia?? I don't usually see the self-styled anarchists, for all their other annoyances, griping about what "does and doesn't belong on IMC."

Because you know what?? IMC is a people's medium, and it's there for the community of people who use it. IMC has come a long way in establishing the boundaries of what it wants and doesn't want on its newswire (ie, no right wing trolling, no crackpot conspiracy bullshit) but its guidelines are still pretty wide, and thank god. IMC is a forum for news, yeah, but its also a forum for a certain community. I personally would like it if the community was wider and deeper, but to deny the communitarian aspects of indymedia is stupid and ignorant of how it functions.

There's a reason as to why, when Indypendent reporters pass out newspapers on the street, people RUN TO TAKE THEM rather than RUN AWAY, like they do when the decrepit maoist-trots-spartico-answerites try to shove their hysterical and gloomy rags down people's throats. because it isn't always about the class struggle, people. sometimes its about life.

ps

and if somebody wanted to post pictures of their basket weaving event on imc, i'd love it. more real people weaving baskets mean less people buying baskets at wal-mart.

lighten up

Oct 31, 2005 09:52PM EST

ch

do so many of you eat, drink and shit politics that you can't have a little fun?

you'll notice that these pictures were filed under "alternatives" and "brooklyn"--pretty apropos.

who are any of you to decide what *isn't* appropriate for an open newswire? aren't you the same hipocritical assholes who whine about free speech--then try to curtail the expression of others? great. that's really progressive. truly! you're pillars of liberation that the rest of us should look up to, whip out our cocks and aim our vaginas at and piss all over.

lighten up. it's only the news. when you get off of your computers and do something concrete to affect change in some sweeping and positive way that doesn't just involve standing in the streets and shouting clever slogans to no one in particular, i'm sure we'll all read about it on the newswire. hell! if you do something really really productive with that energy you wast on policing the expression of others, we might even hear about it above the fold on some, dare i dream, corporate newspaper! until then, i say, "way to go. let's have more arts coverage in this generally grey shaft of ineffectual proslytizing for flavor of the second causes.

think big, act bigger or go home. if you can't will yourself to do either, then share a little news about YOUR new york community. we'd all love to see what you do with your time in this city--apart from sitting at your keyboard.

This is a nation where public policy expounded the notion that "what is good for Ford is good for the nation." Today, the so-called virtues of car culture are continuously pounded into the minds and landscape of americans by the corporate oligarchs. Bike culture is offering an alternative pattern of urban sustainable development. Bike culture offers an alternative to the links that sponser the oil-wars that have killed so many innocent civilians and americans in Iraq. Bike culture provides a transportation mode that is in harmony with the environment. Bike Kill provides an authentic artistic and cultural forum that is distinct from any of the pre-packaged blandness available at your suburban mall. Bike culture is a "counter-culture" that rocks.

bike culture rocks

Nov 03, 2005 09:57AM EST

For a Brighter Future

I second that.

Wisdom from my tea packet:

Nov 03, 2005 09:59AM EST

ATM

"Independence we often fight for, freedom we have to live."

Indymedia could use more images of what that looks like. The idea that this isn't relevant to making change is absurd, and typical of left-wing conservatives.

Reporting on a thriving bike/social culture. Encouraging people to build their own transporation and recreation. Encouraging people to lighten the fuck up.

OR... maybe some more banners and police cordons -- always a sure indicator of true social change taking place.

Sounds like someone's sad they weren't there. Incidentally, so am I. I was in jail for riding my FUCKING BIKE IN THE PARK. Don't tell me biking isn't political.

food for thought

Nov 03, 2005 03:18PM EST

high hopes

I'm an activist and not part of bike culture.

I appreciate Critical Mass alot. I talk it up to friends and have attended.

I don't know why people are always so mean on Indymedia, I imagine it's really one bored right-wing jerkoff posting under 20 names on any thread about anything that makes the comment wire.

Among many activists I know, there is a fatigue with the parts of the white radical scene that are really into their personal activities. This isn't to hate on it, but to say where people are coming from.

Indymedia seems to take this bike stuff real seriously, so does the NYPD. It's beautiful when we reclaim fun for free -- but man!

Step outside and look around. If people see how many unorganized, uninvolved people are really getting fed up, maybe they can take some of that energy and unleash it where folks aren't all wearing the uniform. Part of me gets a bit irritated too, when the cops sweep my neighborhood and it doesn't make the news. I see police choppers over my neighborhood all the time. Abortion might be outlawed very shortly. They are teaching Christian fundamentalism in the schools down south.

Q: What did you do when Bush clamped down, went to war and the whole power structure just went along with it?

A: Dude, I made a chopper out of three old bikes creating a new culture of ecstatic release? Why are you trying to guilt trip me? You're just like my dad!

That's how it feels sometimes. Maybe that's not fair or all-sided. But jeez.

Thanks to the crumb bum grumpy conservative "leftist" for tossing us an easy one:

Biking is subversive.

If you don't think so, look at the economy, look at the physical landscape of the city you live in, look at the impact of oil, look at who is the biggest advertiser on TV/radio/paper, look at the day to day interactions that you make in your life.

Transportation is how you move through the world, Action. Your definition of politics is just talking, theory.

Because it makes you nervous it is dangerous and powerful. Because it blurs the lines it is powerful.

Yes, please stay critical. We need you. Biking so easily becomes a stylish recreation and politically dead. Americans view bikes as toys, that is how they control them.

I thought these choppers were edgy. I especially like the little ones surrounded by steel cages that it looks like are being rammed into each other. That is good physical satire of being a car.

Great project, very creative, will have to have a steam punk you bike event. We run www.reclaimfun.com part of timemachine fun project. We need all the public support we can, please join the facebook.

Best wishes Paul, let the fun begin, what what

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